2011-2012 New Sector Alliance Residency in Social Enterprise

New Sector’s Residency in Social Enterprise (RISE) is a competitive program that provides young professionals with up to ten years of work experience the opportunity to be trained and serve as an AmeriCorps member at a nonprofit organization for one year.

New Sector AmeriCorps Residents are selected from a competitive applicant pool to provide Boston or San Francisco-area organizations (“host sites”) support that enhances the organizations’ service to their constituents. Residents engage in capacity-building projects such as measuring impact, developing collaborations and partnerships, promoting effective use of technology, engaging volunteers, and expanding communication and strategic marketing efforts. We develop each project in coordination with service sites to ensure a substantive, high-impact experience that builds the character of the Resident and benefits the service site and larger community.

Training:
Residents participate in New Sector’s Social Change Leadership Curriculum, which is designed to 1) increase Residents’ ability to provide quality service, 2) provide professional and community development knowledge and skills, 3) create a dynamic “esprit de corps” by providing insight into the communities they serve and the power of national service, and 4) to inspire commitment to a lifetime of service through exposure to role models, theories of change, and concepts of leadership. Our training program combines the best from nonprofit management, business, and civic engagement curricula. Residents learn financial modeling from business professors, mission-based decision making from local nonprofit leaders, and have conversations about long-term engagement in service with AmeriCorps alumni.

Serving as a Resident:
Residents are placed at our service sites, which vary in their area of focus–from addressing environmental or human and health services issues, to engaging in education or community and economic development. Past projects have included developing performance management measures, researching partnership opportunities, and designing new marketing strategies and materials.

New Sector develops a “project scope” with the service site before Residents arrive to ensure a structured, challenging experience. Residents attend biweekly workshops to further the development of their skill sets and deepen their understanding of successful social impact and civic participation. They also participate regularly in small-group, peer-facilitated Learning Teams that provide a support network and a more intimate forum for sharing knowledge, ideas, successes, and challenges.

Through their efforts on specific capacity-building initiatives, their experience with the daily operations of their service sites, and the training and support New Sector provides, Residents develop a holistic understanding of community, service, and building a socially responsible career.

New Sector Residency versus Nonprofit Consulting:
Although New Sector Alliance was incubated within Accenture and founded as a nonprofit consulting firm, the Residency in Social Enterprise program differs from traditional nonprofit consulting in a number of key ways. At New Sector, we think of consulting and being a full-time employee as a spectrum, rather than as two separate roles–Residents fall somewhere along that spectrum. Perhaps the best way to understand the RISE program is to think of it as capacity-building: enhancing organizations’ ability to deliver on their mission.